Returning migrants without authorisation to stay and reducing unwanted migration have become a main focus of EU migration policy and strongly impacts both migrants and the cooperation of the EU and its member states with non-EU countries. The workshop aims at analysing these developments from divergent methodological and epistemological perspectives, going beyond what is often considered a rationalist paradigm (cf. De Genova 2013). In doing so, it will contribute to a better understanding of the causes and consequences of the EU’s and member states’ return policies and question the foundations and rationales these policies are built on.
The EU’s focus on deporting unauthorised migrants often pits member states as host countries against countries of origin and transit, and pits host countries against unauthorised migrants. This workshop explores these dynamics by examining how host countries’ relationships and reliance on migrants and partner countries’ effect implementation. Despite the EU’s efforts to increase cooperation and the ‘effectiveness’ of return, return rates have generally been declining since 2016 and consistently less than 25% of unauthorised migrants were returned to countries outside the European continent.
The discrepancy of interests between host and origin countries in the field of return and readmission has led scholars to study the (EU’s) use of positive and negative incentives vis-à-vis origin countries. Such cooperation has been viewed as rationalist game of asymmetric costs and benefits. We propose to analytically draw on alternative perspectives, such as March and Olsen’s (2004) ‘logic of appropriateness,’ as complementary and interactive with the rationalist ‘logic of consequences’ to understand why origin state actors and others are ‘uncollaborative’ or otherwise obstruct enforced return. The workshop aims to problematise and go beyond the rationalist bias of the literature, focusing on how return and readmission operate in the field, adding more relational and normative perspectives to understanding international practices. This involves shifting focus away from hard power only, and formal policies, such as readmission agreements, and allows us to explore the under-researched theme of implementation and how it shapes the normative discourse in the field of return and readmission.
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De Genova, Nicholas. 2013. ‘“We Are of the Connections”: Migration, Methodological Nationalism, and “Militant Research”’. Postcolonial Studies 16 (3): 250–58.
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Ostrand, Nicole. 2022. ‘Overseas Immigration Liaison Officers: “Knowledge Brokers” and Transnational Spaces of Mid-Level Negotiations Shaping Extraterritorial Migration Control Practices’. Migration Studies 10 (1): 41–61.
Paasche, Erlend. 2022. ‘“Recalcitrant” and “Uncooperative”: Why Some Countries Refuse to Accept Return of Their Deportees’. Migrationpolicy.Org. 20 December 2022. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/recalcitrant-uncooperative-countries-refuse-deportation.
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Slominski, Peter, and Florian Trauner. 2018. ‘How Do Member States Return Unwanted Migrants? The Strategic (Non-)Use of “Europe” during the Migration Crisis’. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 56 (1): 101–18.
Stutz, Philipp, and Florian Trauner. 2022. ‘The EU’s “Return Rate” with Third Countries: Why EU Readmission Agreements Do Not Make Much Difference’. International Migration 60 (3): 154–72.
1: Why do some non-EU countries cooperate more on return than others?
2: What is the impact of EU return and readmission policy on migrants, and what role do they play in implementation?
3: What norms enable or obstruct cooperation on readmission and return?
4: How are international practices influencing migrants’ decision-making?
5: What is ‘effectiveness’ in readmission and return policy and how are return rates used to shape policy?
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Three instances of re-making externalised (return) migration management: EUrope and The Gambia |
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The legitimising role of fundamental rights and forced return monitoring in deportations? |
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From a comprehensive to an externalising approach? An analysis of EU documents on return over five decades |
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Between coercion and persuasion: Explaining alterations in the EU readmission policy |
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Public support for EU-Africa cooperation on irregular migration: Can policy conditionalities mitigate asymmetric (national) interests? |
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Decoding the intricacies of the implementation of return policy. A constructivist analysis of the case of EU- Türkiye deal. |
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On the use of aid conditionality in return and readmission: EU policy and the case of Norway |
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Families navigation of Readmission and reintegration in Serbia |
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The New EU Pact on Migration and Asylum: Challenges Ahead of the Return Policy and the Cooperation with Third Countries |
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The right to life in UK immigration detention centres: A critical suicidology perspective |
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